Bruises
by clay phoenix
Summary: Tumblr Phanniemay prompt: Bruises. Danny is having problems and doesn't trust his friends and family to help him. He gives himself quite the headache trying to cope with his lot in life. [May be expanded upon at a later date.]


He heard a distant, rhythmic thumping in his ears. The sound was soft, yet harsh. Each thud was accompanied by a minute twinge in his facial muscles and a wave of dull pain washing through his head. He wondered vaguely what could be causing these sensations but couldn't muster the motivation to pursue the answer.

"Danny? Are you okay?" he heard his sister ask from the doorway several feet to his left. The thumping continued unabated but it didn't seem to perplex her. He felt himself nodding slightly in reply but did not turn to look at her from his seat on the floor. He assumed she must have walked away when the next few beats of would-be conversation were silence. The only sound to be heard was that ever-persistent _thump_, _thump_, _thump_, and he began to think the sounds might all be in his head. Maybe the silence of the room was making his brain hear noises that weren't there, like one might hear buzzing or beeping?

"Danny, where have you been? Lancer assigned us two essays while you were gone and he said to tell you that he expects them to be done when you come back. What's wrong?" Sam's concerned voice floated over from the doorway where Jazz had been. Danny shook his head to signal that he didn't want to talk about what was wrong. He didn't want to bring it up again – to himself, or her. He had begun to depend on the noise in his head, now. It throbbed through his skull like blood through veins. It had become a soothing metronome in contrast to his budding headache. His body swayed back and forth to it, his head slowly lulling forwards, then backwards.

"Hey Danny! I know you haven't been feeling all that great lately, but maybe playing Doomed later will cheer you up? We need a three-player team to take down this boss in Level 9 of the expansion and everyone we try to play with is a noob. Sam's totally sick of trying anymore so I thought - Danny?" It was Tucker at the door this time. Were they taking turns? He really didn't think all the concern was necessary. He was fine. He ignored Tucker and focused on the soft thumps, the dull pain, the slight twinge. His throat felt like it was closing up but he kept to his machinations on the floor. _Back and forth, back and forth…_the pain was beginning to encompass his entire face but he kept at it to maintain the metronome. _Thump_, _thump_, _thump_, _thump_.

_Back and forth, back and forth…_

Two men in all-white suits pressed bare thumbs against a high-tech security recognition pad in a wall next to an all-white containment cell. The cell was labeled with a number 1 and known throughout the whole facility to have been built specifically for a certain type of rare, dangerous ghostly entity. The door to it was half a foot thick and lined on both sides with a metal that made for a highly efficient ghost-repellant. The two men gained clearance signaled by a loud beeping noise and proceeded to enter a very short hallway that led to another door of the same exact make.

The two men readied their weapons, adjusted their sunglasses, and unlocked the door, slowly inching into a square white room. It was ten feet by ten feet, had no windows, and was dully lit by a long, white fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling. The first thing they noticed as they moved forward was a hard, consistent thumping sound, as if something were hitting a wall. A boy sat alone facing the wall to their left. He wore a white jacket with sleeves long enough to wrap across his chest and attach to his back. His black hair was messy and greasy and his body moved forward as they observed him. His head, following the movement, knocked loudly against the wall. His face twitched, but he swayed backwards and then forwards once more, repeating the action over and over. It was almost hypnotizing to watch.

"All right, Fenton. Get up now, or we _will_ make use of the shock collar," barked one of the men, shaking himself awake from the eerie sight. The boy muttered something, but the only audible words were, "…minutes, Mom." He kept on rocking back and forth, though, as he had been for the past minute. The man in white sighed and flipped a switch in the utility watch on his wrist. The boy's body suddenly stopped its gentle swaying and started jerking wildly like he was having a seizure. A loud, scratchy, agonized scream tore itself from his throat and went on until the electric current was switched off, leaving the boy twitching on his back. Tears fell from the corners of his eyes, down across his ears, and into his dark, messy hair. He had bags under his eyes and a large, red-purple, sickly-looking bruise on his forehead which had just split open and started to bleed. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing when the pain finally began to dull down.

"Five more minutes…" he mumbled on a shaky breath.


End file.
